“This year, the competition is to mine lunar regolith and then to build a berm with it,” said Craig Kalkwarf, the team’s senior mechanical lead.

“The idea is that for future missions to the moon, it would be useful to have that capability to protect the area around launch pads, shield cryogenic propellants and other similar items.”

NASA’s competition tests more than robotic digging. Teams must design machines capable of handling the moon’s fine, abrasive soil while operating efficiently under difficult terrain conditions similar to those astronauts may encounter during long-term lunar missions.

Robots shape moonbase

The berms built by the robots are meant to reduce the amount of dust kicked up during spacecraft landings. The structures could also help shield infrastructure and stored fuel on the moon.

“If we store cryogenic propulsion propellants on the moon, we can cover them in regolith, which insulates them, keeping them cold, requiring less energy,” Kalkwarf said.

“Radiation bombards the surface of the moon, and people living there for an extended period of time need radiation protection. We can take lunar regolith and cover human habitats to protect them from radiation.”

According to the team, lunar soil behaves differently from regular Earth sand, creating engineering challenges for excavation systems.

“It’s kind of like a baby powder consistency, where it’s very small particles, it’s very light and fluffy, but then it also gets dense fast,” Kalkwarf said.

“Its really unique materials behave really strangely.”

The team originally built two robotic systems, including a two-robot setup where one machine excavated soil while another transported it like a dump truck. However, the students ultimately selected a single 80-pound robot for the competition after it delivered stronger test results.

Sand court testbed

“It does it all,” Kalkwarf said. “It drives around, it excavates the lunar regolith, and then it dumps the regolith.”

The team tested the robot in the university’s beach volleyball court because a dedicated regolith testing facility funded through an $86,000 Jefferson Trust grant is still under construction.

Despite the improvised training ground, the students say the robot significantly outperformed previous designs during trials.

“This year, if our robot performs the same in regolith at the competition as it did in the sand, we will score more than the highest-scoring team last year by a factor of two,” Kalkwarf said.

“Our robot is insanely good this year. It’s able to mine a lot of material quickly, traverse quickly and do this all with extreme efficiency.”

The qualifying rounds for the NASA challenge took place at the University of Central Florida before finalists advanced to Kennedy Space Center.